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POLL: would you accept the British quarantine rules?

Would you accept the British quarantine rules?

  • Need more info

    Votes: 1 12.5%

  • Yes, the rules are reasonable

    Votes: 5 62.5%

  • No, would never work

    Votes: 2 25.0%
  • Total voters
    8
  • Poll closed .

swing_voter

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Would you be willing to accept Britain's quarantine rules?


Police will fine you if you disobey.
 
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What about doing home repair/maintenance work? I ask because my profession is working as a self-employed handyman. Obviously, it is now left up to my (potential) customers whether or not I am asked to work on their property. I saw no mention of such being either allowed or discouraged.
 
swing_voter said:
Would you be willing to accept Britain's quarantine rules?


Police will fine you if you disobey.
Click to expand...

This is all well and good. What will the British do in a month or two from now when their economy is in a depression? Far, far better to let the people mingle and gain immunity. So far, the math is that only 2 people per million die from the China Virus and this assumes that they are categorizing the cause of death properly. I think what is happening is that those who are elderly and had other medical issues who ALSO show evidence of having the Corona Virus are being chalked up as dying from the China virus, which is why Italy claims so many have died from the China virus.

I will continue to call this the CHINA virus in keeping with 130 years of tradition.
 


I would think it would depend on the job. Painting a door could be put off but unclogging a toilet has to be fixed asap.
 
swing_voter said:
I would think it would depend on the job. Painting a door could be put off but unclogging a toilet has to be fixed asap.
Click to expand...

Who, exactly, is going to make that call? Would it be the property owner or the government (police)? This is where such "do what I mean" rules/laws become totally subjective - one could easily assert that getting "take out" food prepared by someone else and/or delivered to their home could be put off as well, or that grocery shopping more often than once every 14 days could be put off as well.
 


You don't want to take the chance of infecting your customers, say you visit several elderly people a week. Or if you're elderly, you don't want a customer's kids infecting you. It's going to take common sense.



When the cop stops you, you'll want to have a good reason for being out and about.
 

My "good reason" is to earn money in order to pay my bills while providing a requested service to my customers. BTW, what is the officer's "good reason" (aka probable cause) for stopping me?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
My "good reason" is to earn money in order to pay my bills while providing a requested service to my customers. BTW, what is the officer's "good reason" (aka probable cause) for stopping me?
Click to expand...



If you look into it, there are special laws that kick in during emergencies and epidemics.

In the old days they would often force quarantine when you arrived in the country. That's essentially imprisoning people without a trial.

If this was a hundred years ago, we'd already be under martial law.
 

Yep, but even "special" laws need to be accurately defined. I guess my point is who was breaking the law - the customer who requested my services/assistance or me for responding to that request? That is why I initially asked what (if any) repair or maintenance work can be done? Note that your OP "rules" did not address that issue other than by stating that suppliers of such (essential?) materials can still sell them.
 
swing_voter said:
Would you be willing to accept Britain's quarantine rules?


Police will fine you if you disobey.
Click to expand...

We are implementing some of this on mostly a volunteer basis but we don't seem to be enforcing it very well. Florida just let 5 college age spring break students with COVID 19 head home. How many more got infected while on the beaches and at the beer parties?
 


The cop should know that. He'd write you a ticket only if he thought it warranted it.

And if you don't agree with the cop, you can go convince a judge the cop was wrong.
 
I haven't seen laws that specifically discuss your line of work.

IMO: For the safety of yourself, your customers, and anyone you come into contact with, you need to restrict your work to absolutely essential tasks only. I.e. If your refusal to do a job right now will result in someone getting hurt, you should take the job. Anything else you should put off until the situation is under control.

In China, that's easy to control; they have local Communist Party officials and volunteers issuing passes upon request.

The US or UK is unlikely to take that route. That said, if your state issues a "shelter-in-place" order, and you travel to and work in someone's home for a non-essential service, chances are you are the one breaking the law.
 
I would be willing to accept something quite a bit more severe than that: the Singapore lockdown. The logic is that it would only necessarily last for one month.

The ironic thing is that this solution is reviled by the people who would most benefit from it. It’s funny when you think about it: every Democratic solution would disproportionately benefit a Trump re-election.
 

My work rarely involves any direct customer contact outside of me presenting them a bill for work completed and accepting their (cash or check) payment in return - which could easily be eliminated by having that done by email/mail as I do for many of them now. I have keys and/or gate codes for access to most of my customer's properties. I only do work for my repeat customers and (some of) their referrals.
 
COVID-19 lives on surfaces for at least 3 days. If you're infected, anything you touch long enough could spread the virus to your customers, and vice versa.

So unless those properties are uninhabited, working on those locations will increase everyone's risks substantially. E.g. if you have to buy supplies, or go to multiple locations in a day, then you're likely spreading the virus. This is why a lot of people are pushing for the government to assist people who are losing work because of the virus.
 

All that you say is true of any business or customer out shopping. The only effective way to handle things requires widespread testing to identify COVID-19 carriers (whether they show any symptoms or not), to quarantine anyone who tests positive and to aggressively test anyone who they had contact with. Lately I have doing mostly grass mowing and tree trimming. I have a fence building job coming up, but have not heard from that customer lately.
 
I think American thoughts on the way the British handle things was answered pretty definitively over 200 years ago.
 
swing_voter said:
Would you be willing to accept Britain's quarantine rules?


Police will fine you if you disobey.
Click to expand...

We can do it now or we can do it later the difference will be measured in human lives. Life is full of choices, and so it seems is Death also.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
All that you say is true of any business or customer out shopping.
Click to expand...
Yup... And since we don't have good testing, we have to shut down almost everything to prevent the virus from spreading so fast that it overwhelms medical resources.


Mowing grass with your own mower, building fences should be fine. Of course, that puts you at a small risk when buying gas and other supplies.

Installing cabinets or a backsplash in the kitchen? Not so safe.
 
Scrabaholic said:
There is no immunity. Some who have had it are getting it again.
Click to expand...

He should go find someone with the virus and give them a big hug and kiss and get his immunity now, why wait.
 
Scrabaholic said:
There is no immunity. Some who have had it are getting it again.
Click to expand...


We don't know very much," says Matt Frieman, a coronavirus researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. "I think there's a very likely scenario where the virus comes through this year, and everyone gets some level of immunity to it, and if it comes back again, we will be protected from it — either completely or if you do get reinfected later, a year from now, then you have much less disease."

If You Get Coronavirus And Recover, Do You Develop Immunity : Goats and Soda : NPR
 
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